Cleveland has reached a settlement with the Justice Department over repeated excessive force and civil rights violations by the city’s police officers.
The settlement is expected to be announced this week, according to a Justice Department official, and was first reported by the New York Times. The deal would come just days after a judge acquitted a white Cleveland police officer of manslaughter for more than a dozen rounds through the windshield of a car carrying two black, unarmed men in 2012.
In December, the Justice Department released a report accusing the Cleveland Police Department of using sometimes deadly force against citizens illegally, including shooting them and spraying them with chemicals.
Details of the settlement were not released, the Times said. But other settlements in recent years have included independent monitors to oversee changes to police departments, improved training and new policies on use of force.
Under President Obama, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has opened 22 investigations into police departments across the country. It currently is enforcing 16 agreements with law-enforcement agencies. Those include 10 consent decrees, and are with the New Orleans, Detroit and Seattle police departments, among others.
It also opened a civil rights investigation into the death of Baltimore resident Freddie Gray, who died after being in police custody, and a separate probe into the Baltimore police department’s use of force and whether it engages in discriminatory policing.
